An insight into Life After Life with Ashley Ali

Life After Life follows two terminally ill men, Jimmy and Eric on their final journey, using dark humour to portray the deep subject.

“The initial response I get from people when I tell them is quite negative, they automatically think it's going to be dreary and depressing, but there's lots of dark humour mixed in. It keeps the piece light and fun even though the tone of the piece is serious and a lot of the audience will have experienced something similar, either personally or know someone who has.”

The play’s writer, Ashley Ali, is one of many who can relate to this experience, after losing his Mum in September 2013.

He said: “It was the most difficult time of my life. I could not write a thing, even though I tried. Writing has always been like a therapy to me, but it didn't work, so I read a lot instead." 

"My girlfriend tried her best to lift my spirits and she bought me some books... One of them; The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying stuck with me and I read it over and over. In short, the book is about how Tibetan monks view death and it is an integral part of living."

“There is no life without death. We in the west look at death very differently. If we merely mention the subject, we're told we are being morbid or depressing and we just brush it to the back of our minds like it doesn't exist. That's how life after life was born.”

Ashley has always had an interest in writing. However this is his first tap into playwriting, with short stories, feature length scripts and novels being his main area of writing.

After the success of writing/business partner, Christopher Woodward’s play, ‘The Man with no Identity’, the pair discussed adapting Ashley’s writing style to theatre so he could explore another creative avenue.

The future of Likeminded seems bright and prosperous with a long list of upcoming projects in 2018, watch this space for updates and projects coming soon.

We Are Likeminded

Words by Megan Kay
Design by Christopher Woodward